The Night-Black Cat
by Crystal Allen
Summary: The master, his servant, the lyre, the hive of phantoms... oh, yes - and the cat. A Halloween Fairytale poem.


**Authors Notes:** It is Halloween! The very best night of the year. I wanted to give Kuroshitsuji a more benevolent, slightly pagan deity to contend with; not an angel or a reaper, just something different. And I never would have gotten the idea for this poem if I hadn't read 'The Geebung Polo Club' by A.B. "Banjo" Paterson, which was so much fun that it made me want to rhyme. I imitated its structure for this poem, and was very much inspired by the line: "They were demons, were the members of the Geebung Polo Club." To conclude, I hope you like what I've written. I hope it puts you in the Halloween spirit tonight. (And you all remember that I don't own anything, don't you?)

* * *

" _Then the woman laughed and said, 'You are the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to you. You are neither a friend nor a servant. You have said it yourself. Go away and walk by yourself in all places alike.' Then the Cat pretended to be sorry and said, '…You should not be cruel…' " –_ Rudyard Kipling, _The Cat Who Walked By Himself_

* * *

 ** _The Night-Black Cat_**

* * *

In the open English countryside there stands a house of stone,

full of winding halls and fabled riches hardly ever shown,

and within this lonely grandeur live a strange, contented few,

while the crimson forests 'round them lend their shade to someone new.

* * *

In the light time, in the day-time, she plays music soft and low

for the young man in his study wondering where the time did go

when the room was still his father's, and his hour was not so late.

He's a child, is the master of the Phantomhive Estate.

* * *

He's a drawn and weary cynic with a question in his eye,

an ancestral burden on his shoulders many miles too high,

and a home of pampered luxury, well kept – though not for long,

by the reason for the warning note inherent in her song.

* * *

And she plays for him while knowing that he cannot truly hear,

for a voice of sweetened poison speaks already in his ear,

and her gentle brand of witchcraft, though well-meant, has come too late.

He's a demon, is the servant of the Phantomhive Estate.

* * *

But he greets her with affection when he meets her in the day,

bringing gifts of milk, and pleasant words, entreating her to stay.

For with all his twisted wisdom he knows not to whom he calls

when he beckons to the night-black cat outside the manor walls;

for her shape is quite as false as his, her eyes as bright and old,

and she serves no master but herself in every tale that's told.

* * *

In the dark time, in the late time, she plays music low and soft,

in a taller, stronger body, with her lyre held aloft

to the figure in the window, black and thin against the light

of the lamp held by the demon as he bids the boy goodnight.

* * *

She hopes that in his absence, her own powers may emerge –

a benign and clever sorcery for those who feel the urge

to fling wide their windows late at night, to see what they will see.

But the master, if he hears, rejects a sound so strangely free,

for he was a willing captive and he has a vow to keep.

But the servant listens every night.

The servant does not sleep.

* * *

His form is bleak and shadowed when he meets her in the night.

Even yet, he does not know her, and his face is all alight

with a power and a hatred she was never built to feel.

But she feels it now, and plays it, in a tantalizing reel.

* * *

She has never played such music, and she never will again,

for the creatures which it summons are the devil's lively kin,

but she plays now for the servant, since the child refused to hear.

She has played for older gods, and she knows no such thing as fear.

* * *

To ensure the proper image, here is what the servant sees:

a _dark ladye_ , tall, with eyes agleam, her lyre fit to sway the trees.

In this he finds a challenge, and a being worth his while,

with a goblin spark of mischief in her song, and in her smile.

* * *

There are whispers in the velvet dark that burn with autumn gold

from the jackal grins of jack o' lanterns laughing at the cold.

And the night-black cat laughs with them, and she dances for their praise.

She could lure the servant to her in a hundred different ways,

but it's innocence she chooses, and a gilded, old-world song;

and the servant knows fine music, so decides to play along.

* * *

Haunts and specters now come wheeling down from up inside the sky!

Like the bursting of a stormcloud they slide dancing, laughing, by

with unearthly, poisoned voices like the demon's, black and sweet

as he takes her lyre away from her and swings her off her feet.

* * *

Tis deceptive, tis a shame, such a partner, with such charms!

Tis a tricky captivation dancing in the demon's arms.

And although she does know better, she enjoys herself in spite

of the phantoms teeming round her, more emerging from the night.

* * *

But it's not for love of dancing that he waltzes with her now.

His hands, they clutch too roughly, and his eyes, they don't allow

any struggle, no, nor protest as they whirl among the ghosts,

for although he is a servant, he's the deadliest of hosts.

So he holds her fast and dances well, inventing as he goes,

all the ways in which to kill her by the time the music slows.

* * *

 _This house is mine,_ he tells her, _and the soul that lives within,_

 _and he'll never see nor hear you, just as though you'd never been._

But the night-black cat, she smiles. She has magic at her core.

' _I will play for him, regardless; songs of myth, and love, and lore._

 _Yes, I waltz with you this evening, while your minions howl and bay,_

 _but it's here that I am needed, and it's here that I shall stay.'_

* * *

The servant's face contorts then, and the fragrant dark turns stale.

The spark-lit pumpkins gutter out; their smoky grins turn pale,

and the night becomes a starless vault that locks her in her place –

But there's yet a trace of triumph in her knowing, bronze-eyed face.

* * *

For within the dark and silent house a stirring now is heard,

giving hint of dread and troubled dreams and sorrows long interred

in a mind trapped in the hideous fright so often found in sleep,

as now to the master – to the child – the spooks begin to creep.

* * *

The demon stands conflicted 'twixt his master and his foe,

for the binding contract calls, and by his promise, he must go.

Yet he cannot leave this creature here to weave her kindly spell.

She cannot be changed or bullied, and she means his master well,

but to interfere with demon's work? It cannot be allowed.

And he says, _Without your music, you may not be half so proud._

* * *

He takes the lyre up and feels it quickening his blood;

thrumming music not forgotten, simply lost. Beneath the flood

of too many human years, and human toys, and human lies –

waits the warmth of ancient bonfire light, of smoke and fireflies.

* * *

And the servant, he remembers, oh, he does remember that.

Things too long ago to matter save to him, and to the cat.

And a pair of slender hands on his give pause to his mistake;

something would be gone forever, if the lyre were to break.

* * *

The witching hour has ended, but dark creatures keep no time,

for on this night, ghoulish revelry and pranks and tricks and crime

are the tried and true traditions of all wild, exuberant things,

like the demon, and the cat, who strums her lyre again and sings:

* * *

' _Lo- this night is now a children's night, though once, I called it mine._

 _It belongs more to your master, and if you and I align,_

 _these unwelcome ghosts out from your haunted house we may well chase,_

 _and you may return to haunting it yourself, to take their place.'_

* * *

The servant's eyes gleam darkly, and he smiles a slow, sly smile.

He says, _'Twas your song called them forth to bide with us awhile,_

 _and 'twill be your song again that makes them scatter back to Hell,_

 _neath the ground and neath the ocean where still darker creatures dwell._

* * *

But he did concede to help her with good humor (for his kind,)

for his master needed saving from the horrors of his mind.

So he offers to the night-black cat his arm, and this she takes,

and together they expel the ghouls before the master wakes.

* * *

When wake he does, come morning-time, he'll find not one small trace

of All Hallows celebration in his demon servant's face.

And he still won't hear the music that continues, on and on,

unrequested and unbidden, that resumed at break of dawn.

And he'll never see the lyre, though he'll sometimes see the cat –

just a scrappy, stray black creature, quite a pest, and only that.

* * *

But the servant will remember, and he'll wonder, and he'll search,

while a bronze-eyed cat upon his shoulder settles in to perch,

for his dark-haired lady rival, and the music of the past

that brought Halloween to life and made it brilliant to the last.

* * *

And the night-black cat will live, as she has always lived, alone.

And she'll see the pumpkins cleared away, the dead leaves scattering, blown

by an orange autumn wind that turns to winter, death, and fate,

as the day begins anew inside the Phantomhive estate.


End file.
